Frog hesitated. What was expected of him? Being woken up this way prevented him from replying intelligently and his voice betrayed his disgruntlement.
‘Not much,’ he complained.
‘Not much?’ repeated the general with a small chuckle. He turned round at last and for a moment his face seemed more relaxed. Then his features tightened into severity once again. ‘I’m not asking your opinion on the matter,’ he said, ‘but what you actually know. So? What have I taught you?’
Frog could not bear the knight’s gaze this morning. He struggled against his longing to close his eyes, lie down and rest a while, without fighting, without being afraid, without any of this. To simply close his eyes and not have to think any more.
‘Everything breathes,’ he replied finally.
‘What’s that?’ asked the general, cupping a hand behind his ear.
‘Everything is in movement, like breathing. That’s what the animus is,’ the boy explained, as if reciting a lesson.
He backed up a step, suddenly wary, when Dun-Cadal approached him with his sword drawn.
‘So that’s all you’ve retained . . . and yet you claim you’re able to use the animus with the greatest of ease,’ the knight sighed. ‘Very well. Disarm me.’
‘What?’
‘Disarm me!’
He spread his arms as if inviting an attack. A strange smile played on his lips as he observed his apprentice’s reaction. The lad was trembling. Was it down to the cold morning or the worrying prospect of confronting his mentor in a duel? It didn’t really matter, because Dun-Cadal knew exactly what Frog was going to do. When he placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, the general’s smile froze.
‘Without your sword,’ he instructed.
‘You’re crazy, I’m not going to—’
‘Disarm me without using your sword. Since you know all about the animus, go ahead, surprise me.’
Although Dun-Cadal’s face let nothing show, he was jubilant. Opposite him, Frog had no idea what to do. He hesitated, at a loss, a far cry from the arrogant boy who had defied him the previous evening.
‘I’m waiting,’ Dun-Cadal murmured.
Frog extended his arm towards him, hand open. The general bided his time. He saw the lad stiffen little by little, the muscles in his arm contracting until it was shaking like a piece of wood that had been struck hard . . . but nothing happened.
‘You don’t know what the animus really is,’ Dun-Cadal declared as he resheathed his sword with a snap.
Frog lowered his arm along with his eyes, looking hurt. All his anger had boiled up again, ready to explode. A rage that had no other cause than his patent failure. Dun-Cadal was right. He did not make the slightest movement when the general halted next to him, tilting his face towards Frog’s with a hard expression.
‘The animus is passed from knight to knight, it’s not an innate gift. Whoever understands it is able to use it. So remember that. Feel your surroundings, Frog. You don’t need to open your eyes to see them. You just need to know they exist all around you. Feel them live . . .’
But the lad turned his head away as if refusing to listen. The boy’s pride bordered on insolence.
‘Close your eyes!’ snarled the general.
He did not have to repeat himself. Insolent perhaps, but not stupid.
‘Good . . . Now,’ he said in a voice that was suddenly quieter, ‘try to listen . . . the sound of the wind . . . follow it between the trees . . . fly with it . . . listen to the birds . . . not their song, no . . .’ He placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder and leaned towards his ear. ‘But the beating of their hearts . . .’
Frog’s face relaxed and his breathing became calmer, slower.
‘The earth . . . the entire world is like the air that comes and goes. The animus . . . the breath and life of the world. Everyone can hear it . . . But feel it? Control it? That’s much harder . . . You need to be alert, focused . . . Feel the animus, be the animus.’
The lad’s chest rose and fell more quickly now. When Dun-Cadal saw him frown, he knew that he had taken Frog where he wanted him to be. The rhythm of his words, the peaceful sound of his voice, were hypnotising his pupil.
‘Feel the animus, be the animus,’ he said slowly. ‘Feel it, Frog! It’s there, the magic. In every breath you exhale . . . It’s like music, Frog . . . It’s not enough to simply listen. Feel it . . . legato . . . staccato . . . Now, picture the tree facing us in your mind . . . Are you picturing it?’
There was no more anger, no more hurt, no more tension. Beside him, Frog was straightening up, full of confidence. Dun-Cadal paused . . . before raising his voice.
‘Feel the animus, Frog. And strike!’
With a brusque movement the boy extended his arm and with it came a noise like the howl of the wind in the middle of a storm. The dead leaves lifted in a whirl; a furrow dug itself in the ground at an amazing speed, running between Frog and the foot of a tree. The bark flew off near some protruding roots and then split open a few inches higher with a crackling sound like the rattling breath of a dying man.
At that same moment, Frog opened his eyes. The general was standing ready, his hands on the boy’s shoulder. He had experienced this and knew the pain that followed the first real use of the animus. When he saw the lad’s mouth open wide with his respiration cut off, he recalled the burning that had run through his chest and the way his muscles had felt as heavy as lead. Frog fell forward, his legs giving way beneath his own weight. His mentor caught him and helped him to kneel.
‘Calm . . . calm . . . calm, lad,’ he murmured, hugging him tightly.
‘I— I promise . . .’
And the boy coughed, so loud, so hard that it seemed as if he were literally coughing his lungs up, as tears came to his eyes.
‘Frog . . .’
‘The animus, Frog . . . it’s something you learn . . . do you understand now? You’ll know how to use it one day. I promise you. . . but in return, promise me you won’t try any more crazy stunts like yesterday’s.’
‘. . . still sleeping, you can’t wake him.’
His body quivering with little jolts, still trying as best he could to clear his air passages, Frog nodded.
‘He’s still sleeping!’
‘I— I . . . promise,’ he managed to say between two coughing fits.
‘Wake him.’
‘He’s still sleeping.’
‘Wake him up, I need to talk to him.’
The voices were muffled, yet he managed to clearly understand each of the words spoken.
‘I must ask you to leave the premises,’ one voice said.
‘I have no intention of leaving without seeing him,’ replied another just as firmly.
Finally, there was light. Little by little, his eyelids opened over his misty eyes. Above him the faded ceiling mouldings were bathed in a golden light. He wanted to turn his head, but there seemed to be an anvil lodged in his skull, the corners striking his temples with every sudden movement. Grimacing, he sat up in the bed. He was in Mildrel’s home. Gradually, memories of the previous evening came to the surface. He held his head in his hands, cursing the fact that he was still alive. How he would have liked never to wake up, to be forgotten, not even a shadow, pure nothingness.
‘You don’t understand! It’s important!’
The voice was young and determined.
‘You aren’t welcome here, sniffing around in other people’s pasts.’
The two voices came from behind the closed door of his chamber, but he had no difficulty recognising Mildrel’s. Through the curtains, rays of already bright sunlight penetrated as far as the foot of the wall facing him. In the neighbouring room, Mildrel and Viola were still arguing. The two women were polar opposites; a courtesan who had spent her life seducing men in order to climb her way into high society had little in common with a young supporter of the Republic.
‘Leave him alone . . .’
It was not an order, but rather a plea. As she sat down
in an armchair covered in tarnished gilt, Mildrel sighed.
‘You’re after Eraëd, aren’t you?’
‘That’s why I came and found him, yes,’ Viola replied. ‘Dun-Cadal fled Emeris with it. It’s part of the history of our world, my lady.’
The historian stood near the doorway to the small salon, her hands joined before her. Although she’d raised her voice to make herself be heard, she was like a shy little girl when she mentioned the sword.
‘It was forged by the kings of this world. Some say it’s magical, capable of cleaving the hardest rocks, of piercing the hide of the greatest dragons . . .’
She fell silent for a moment before tucking one of her red locks behind her ear. There was a dreamy light in her eyes as they peered through her round spectacles.
‘But . . . whatever you may think, it’s something completely different that brought me here today, my lady.’
‘He had nothing to with the councillor’s assassination,’ Mildrel assured her, seeking to forestall any accusation.
Viola nodded.
‘I know that. I was with him when the councillor was killed. But he knows the assassin.’
If Mildrel was surprised by this piece of information, she let nothing show. She had learned to mask her emotions. A courtesan had to be a good actress in order to extract secrets and, even more, to pretend not to know them.
‘I’m certain of it. He spoke of the . . . Hand of the Emperor.’
Mildrel looked down. The sunlight coming through the window at her back lit up her bare shoulders. A few curly strands of hair fell gently upon her nape. When Viola had seen her the first time, it had been night. Her visit this morning gave her another opportunity to observe Dun-Cadal’s former mistress. She was starting to understand some of the things she had been told about this woman. A flower that had barely begun to fade with time . . . She had expected Mildrel to intervene in her business with Dun-Cadal. She had even come prepared for that.
‘You think you can do as you please because we served the Emperor Reyes, don’t you?’ said Mildrel in a bitter tone. ‘You, with your studies, your history and your little round spectacles. You come sniffing around people’s pasts in your arrogant, impetuous youth, poking into our deepest wounds just to achieve your own ends . . . Your Republic has given you the freedom to judge others. But only that freedom . . .’
She brushed at her gown with a nervous gesture before getting up.
‘I won’t ask you again,’ she declared. ‘Leave my house. This is a place where a good many of Masalia’s gentlemen gather. Several of them owe me favours and would not hesitate to deal with you . . . with the most complete respect for the very Republic you cherish so dearly.’
So it was barely veiled threats now. Viola felt her hands becoming damp at the idea that something . . . painful might happen to her. She just needed to cajole Dun-Cadal along for long enough for him to lead her, of his own accord, to Eraëd.
‘Madam . . . it’s a matter of life and death . . .’
‘For you, surely. I’d be surprised if General Dun-Cadal feels the same way.’
‘I must speak with him.’
‘All I need to do is send a message to the chief of Masalia’s city guards,’ Mildrel warned, joining her hands before her.
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ interjected a hoarse, almost broken voice.
The door to the bedchamber had opened without the two women hearing it. Dun-Cadal stood squinting on the threshold, one hand pressed against the door frame to keep his balance. He took an unsteady step forward with a grimace. This headache of his was obviously not going to give him any respite. He had been drinking for almost the entire previous day. He cleared his throat before speaking again.
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ he resumed, ‘because you can’t and you know it. The men who come to see your girls aren’t upstanding bourgeois citizens of the Republic, but passing sailors . . .’
‘Shut up!’ Mildrel snapped indignantly.
It didn’t bother him that he was wrecking Mildrel’s efforts to protect him. Both of them were living in the past and treated the future as their enemy.
‘As hard as you’re trying to frighten off this young lass, I’m not sure you’ll succeed. She’s very determined . . . aren’t you?’
He turned towards Viola. She gave him a brief nod.
‘Yesterday you mentioned Negus,’ said Viola without further ado. ‘A friend.’
‘Yes,’ Dun-Cadal replied simply.
‘A councillor,’ she added.
The old man’s gaze grew vague. His throat was so dry. Negus . . . he had betrayed the very thing he had spent so many years defending, too . . . His old friend Negus. His headache became so strong that he placed a damp palm upon his brow.
‘He’s arrived in Masalia.’
‘What can I do about that?’ he sighed.
‘Warn your friend. I’ll take you to him, he’ll listen to you,’ explained Viola.
Listen to him? Would they even still be friends after all this time? He exchanged a glance with the young woman. She was indeed determined. Her eyes held a spark similar to the one he’d perceived, so long ago, in a young boy.
‘Will you be a phantom for the rest of your life?’ murmured Viola. ‘Or will you act like a real . . . general ?’
He seemed so weak standing there, with his bloodshot eyes and the greenish cast to his skin. She doubted it would be possible to revive a spark in him that seemed more dead than asleep. But she had to try.
‘What right have you—?’ the courtesan started to say angrily.
‘Mildrel,’ Dun-Cadal said, cutting her off.
He’d only whispered her name, accompanied by a simple look of sadness. All of this could not be due to chance: Viola’s arrival, Eraëd, his memories becoming more vivid than ever . . . the Hand of the Emperor. Something more powerful was at work . . . was it the divine?
‘Wait for me below,’ he asked Viola.
When the sound of her footsteps on the stairs grew faint, the old warrior ventured further into the salon, still stumbling a little.
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Mildrel hissed.
‘Done what? Acknowledge that you were making stories up to scare her off?’ he taunted, before leaning on a pedestal table as he rubbed his eyes with a trembling hand. ‘You fled Emeris and the court just as we all did! You’re surviving in a Republic that has forgotten all about us. None of the people who frequent this place have any power over this world. The only thing you think you still control is me. But you’ve mothered me long enough, my beauty. The young lass is right. She’s bloody well right . . .’
The courtesan looked at him sternly. He would have liked to see something other than reproach in her eyes.
‘Mildrel—’
‘And what about her?’ she asked with a quiver in her voice. A smile stretched her red lips. ‘What does she have that the others lacked?’
‘She needs me?’ he suggested.
He walked to the door with a firmer step and halted, touching the handle.
‘He’s not the Hand of the Emperor . . .’
‘But what if he is?’ retorted Dun-Cadal, looking pensively at the lock.
‘You want to avenge him, is that it? Dun-Cadal, you’re no longer a—’
‘A general?’
He spun round so abruptly that he had to clutch the handle to stop himself from falling. A mean scowl twisted his face.
‘How do you see me, Mildrel? As a vestige? Leftover rubbish?’
‘That’s not what I meant—’
‘How then?’ he bellowed. ‘A poor old boozer? That’s what I am, Mildrel, a drunkard. I’ve lived outside the world for too long. What do I know about the Republic? About the people who survived after the Empire fell? If I can do something good before I die . . . not for an Empire, not for a Republic, but just to save lives. Like a knight would. Like a general . . .’
In Mildrel’s face, haloed by Masalia’s bright sunshine, he no
longer saw any reproach, nor any anger or sadness. Merely affection.
‘Tell me . . . Mildrel. Tell me how you see me,’ he insisted in a dying voice, before adding: ‘It is him, it’s Logrid, I’m certain of it. He wants to take revenge on all those who defeated the Empire, all the ones who switched sides. It can’t be anything else.’
He opened the door.
‘I’m sorry . . .’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘For you. You and me. How ironic . . . I was always so good at sowing death . . .’
He left the room and as he closed the door behind, he concluded hoarsely:
‘. . . but I was never able to sow life.’
8
KAPERNEVIC
Let’s see . . . you called me Wader, didn’t you?
Why don’t I return the favour?
As you seem to like these wriggling beasties . . .
You will be . . . Frog.
I shall call you Frog . . .
Each step cost him, each movement revived the pain in his head, like the din of some ferocious battle whose echo refused to die. He walked, doing the best he could to remain dignified, but his balance was so precarious that he had to keep to the walls and use them for intermittent support.
‘Are you going to manage all right?’ asked Viola.
In the street full of life and noise she was like a shining beacon, luminous, reassuring . . . her sweet face framed by those two dangling locks of flamboyant red hair, brushing against her cheeks. And the scent of lavender which floated around her soothed him. Masalia’s light-coloured walls were a torment to his eyes, reflecting the raw sunlight. He squinted, grumbling.
‘I’ll be fine . . . I’ll be fine . . .’
‘We’ve not far to go now,’ she said to encourage him.
He leaned against a façade, livid, cursing his drinking habit. Why did he have to drink so much? The image of a tankard came into his mind, as if gulping its contents were the solution he needed to relieve his pain. He looked down. His right hand was shaking . . .
‘Make way! Make way!’ a voice bawled.
People cleared a path as a squad of guards came into view. It was the fourth such squad they had encountered since leaving Mildrel’s house. They always marched at the same pace, their feet striking the muddy ground, the tips of their spears sparkling above their helmets. They’d never been used. These soldiers had surely never been in combat but they marched, puffed up with pride. . . Pathetic, he thought.
The Path of Anger Page 14
